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Poll worker Christie Yeager gets a voting location ready for the June 5, 2018 primary election at the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society in the Los Angeles County community of North HIlls. (Photo by David Crane/Daily News-SCNG

A nation of political junkies knows all about the biggest election in Los Angeles County on Nov. 6, the race for the U.S. House of Representatives between Republican incumbent Steve Knight and Democratic challenger Katie Hill that could help to tip the party balance in Congress.

Voters in many parts of L.A. County know — or will know soon — that’s far from the only consequential contest here this fall. The ballots scheduled to be sent to by-mail voters Oct. 8 include at least a half-dozen other high-profile congressional elections, many of those involving prominent critics of President Trump and other lawmakers.

And a half-dozen congressional and state legislative elections shaped in part by the sexual misconduct scandals that have shaken California politics (and Washington) in the past year. And at least a couple of other competitive races for the state Assembly that could help to determine if Democrats maintain their two-thirds supermajority in that house (they’re one seat short of two-thirds in the Senate).

Thousands of L.A. County voters will have a say in another potentially pivotal House race, the one between Republican Young Kim and Democrat Gil Cisneros for the 39th District seat of retiring Rep. Ed Royce, R-Brea, although that district is mostly in Orange County and a bit in San Bernardino County.

Two important L.A. County offices are on the line, too, those of Sheriff and Assessor. Incumbent Sheriff Jim McDonnell was forced into a runoff against retired Sheriff’s Lt. Alex Villanueva in the June 5 primary — a surprise to many election-watchers — and Assessor Jeffrey Prang faces a runoff against an opponent who has christened himself John “Lower Taxes” Loew.

The ballot also features measures and elections for office in many cities, school districts and water districts, including elections for mayor in Palmdale, El Monte, Inglewood, Baldwin Park and Lawndale, and city council seats in Santa Clarita, Pomona, Downey, West Covina, Santa Monica, Carson, Hawthorne, Alhambra, San Fernando, Calabasas, Duarte, Irwindale, Malibu, Montebello, Pico Rivera and Westlake Village, among other places.

Voters in the city of Los Angeles will decide two ballot measures but no races for City Hall offices. L.A. has long held elections in odd-numbered years but will change that in 2020 to align city elections with state and federal elections. One of the two proposed charter amendments Nov. 6 would fine-tune the city’s switch to even-year elections by moving the primary date from June to March so it’s the same day as the state’s recently rescheduled primary.

Five elections for Superior Court judge in L.A. County also have gone to runoffs this year.

It’s true that the results appear to be foregone conclusions in many district races at the congressional and state legislative level. That’s not a surprise in a county where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans 51.2 percent to 17.8 percent — with another 26.1 percent declaring no party preference — in the latest reporting registration statistics.

But overall here, it’s an election season with more tension than usual.

Among 18 elections for the U.S. House to be contested entirely or partly in L.A. County, the ones with broad implications are in the 25th (Knight vs. Hill) and 39th (Kim vs. Cisneros) districts. Both are among the half-dozen districts in Southern California that are currently held by Republicans but had more voters choosing Democrat Hillary Clinton than Republican Trump for president in 2016. Winning those would be a big step for Democrats hoping to make the net 23-seat gain they need to take a controlling majority in the House.

Other House races to watch involve Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank (District 28), Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks (30), Ted Lieu, D-Torrance (33), and Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles (43), who have in different ways been vocal opponents of Trump. It would be a major upset if any of them lost — their respective opponents are Johnny Nalbandian, Mark Reed, Kenneth Wright and Omar Navarro — but it will be interesting to see if voters pass judgment on the incumbents’ Trump “resistance” moves by giving them bigger or smaller margins than in 2016.

Along the same lines, Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Whittier, who faces Republican Ryan Downing in CA 38, will be hoping for encouragement from voters as she plans a run for a position in Democratic Party leadership.

At the state Assembly level, three races (at least) in L.A. County figure to be competitive: The 38th District, where incumbent Dante Acosta, R-Santa Clarita, faces a rematch against Democrat Christy Smith; the 66th, where incumbent Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, defends against Republican Frank Scotto in a district that has gone back and forth between the parties; and the 58th, where incumbent Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, faces Republican Mike Simpfenderfer. In the June primary for the 58th Garcia pulled in only 28.9 percent of the vote against seven opponents, after losing committee assignments in the wake of an investigation that found the one-time #MeToo movement leader used “vulgar language,” but failed to substantiate a charge that she groped a former legislative staffer.

#MeToo scandals hang over two other Assembly races and two state Senate contests in the county.

In the 32nd Senate District, Democrat Bob Archuleta and Republican Rita Topalian vie for the former seat of Democrat Tony Mendoza of Artesia, who resigned in February after an investigation found “a pattern of unwelcome flirtation and sexually suggestive behavior” toward female colleagues and staffers as young as 19. Democrat Vanessa Delgado has been serving since winning a special election in June.

In the 18th Senate District, Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, faces Republican Rudy Melendez after seemingly weathering bad publicity from an official order earlier this year to stop greeting people with his trademark hugs after some complained.

Kevin Modesti is a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News and the Southern California News Group, covering the political scene in Los Angeles County. An L.A. native, he was a sports writer, columnist and editor for most of his career, and later an editorial board member, writer and editor in the Opinion section. He lives in the San Fernando Valley and is based in the Woodland Hills office.